


Impossible

by wavewright62



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Kids say the darndest things, Year 0 (Stand Still Stay Silent)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 02:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10844238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wavewright62/pseuds/wavewright62
Summary: Little Mia Västerström gets some ideas in her head, but a good parent doesn't let their child get carried away by fantasy.This serves as my contribution for the letter I in the Alphabet Soup challenge.





	Impossible

_“There's no use trying,” she said, “one can't believe impossible things.”_  
_“I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”_

Stig closed the book. Mia wasn't asleep, her eyes were still glittering in the light of the candle. "Good night, sweetie," he kissed her on the forehead and stood up.

"Pappa, I can do that."

"What's that, sweetie?"

"Believe in impossible things," Mia's voice was a bit muffled as she tucked the covers under her chin. "I want to go to school again. Mamma says that's impossible."

"She's right, though," Stig sat down on the bed again, "the school is going to be closed for quite a while, I think." No use telling her about the horror stories relayed by hearsay from other refugees.

"I want to get Grandma a new chair from Ikea, but she says that's impossible, too."

"Yeeess, that's true, for now, but you're very sweet for thinking of her."

"I told Grandpa and Grandma about my friend Freya, and they said that was impossible," Mia continued quietly. Stig furrowed his brow. He hadn't heard that one, he asked her to explain. "I dreamed about her, she's not here, but she let me pet her cats. She was really nice and said I could have dreams if I like."

"But you were already having a dream, silly," Stig teased, "or did she mean just nice dreams?"

Mia considered this, her eyes drooping. "Nooo, she meant…I don’t know, she just showed me, dreams about Bosse, except he was a cat. And a dream about a moose, except it was all weird and gross with its eyes all funny. That wasn't a nice dream."

Stig paused before saying anything. There _had_ been a moose that came past their encampment the other day. Some of the others had been saying that not just people could get the Rash, animals could too, and that moose was pretty sick, all right. It ran off when Karlsson shot it, even though Karlsson said he got it square in the side of the head. Somebody must have told Mia about it, probably his father. "Everybody gets bad dreams, sweetie. We're all kind of scared with this new Rash illness. It's pretty normal to let your imagination run wild with some of the things we're hearing." Better steer her away from that. "Was Bosse all fluffy as a cat, too, in your dream?"

"Yeah, he was really fluffy," Mia wriggled under the covers, turning onto her side. "Freya said cats were blessed and couldn't get the Rash."

"Is that right." Stig looked at the cat curled on the bed with them, who always slept with Mia if she could help it.

"Yes. And Odin came too, and showed me that if I wanted to get rid of the places in the towns where the trolls hid, I had to burn them down with fire. He was kinda scary and had only one eye, like that moose. Pappa, what trolls did he mean?"

Stig didn't answer. He was going to have words with Ulf for giving Mia the scary details like that, it was giving her bad dreams. She was too young to have to deal with any of that. It would probably blow over soon anyway, maybe. It had to.

Mia's voice came sleepily from under her blankets. "Tell them about burning down the nests, Pappa, Odin said it was really important." She popped her head out again. "I wasn't sleeping when he told me that, you know, he was right there." She pointed at the far corner of the room. "He said it was time to come help us again, he did, Pappa, he really did."

"You were asleep, Mia, don't be silly," Stig got off the bed and kissed her again, "it was just a dream, you just remembered Odin from one of your books or something." He chuckled. "Odin or Freya aren't real, you know that, right? That's impossible."

"Okay. Good night, Pappa."

"Sweet dreams, Mia."

"I will."

Stig closed the door, shaking his head. Burning down the towns, who ever heard of such a thing? They would need somewhere to go home to, when this epidemic blew over. It was impossible that it would last much longer.

**Author's Note:**

> And this is why the Swedes do not have the benevolent protection of the Norse gods in Y90; they just don't believe in it.


End file.
